I was very excited to read this article about motivating students to read. For my entire adult-life I have considered my children as unmotivated readers. My husband and I are avid readers; we love books of all kinds and read frequently. In fact, a book is like a movie to me. I read a book in one sitting rather than over the course of several days. I don't like to be interrupted. However, books of academic nature can be "chewed on" over the course of several days or even weeks.
I read to my children in the womb. I read to them everyday until they were able to read themselves. I still read to them from time to time, but not very often (especially with Thing #1). Thing #2 still loves it! It's probably because I do voices! However, my children do not like to read books. I have tried everything that I could think of to get them to read. I have been successful getting my son to read Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. I think the reason he does is because they have drawings in them. He loves picture books!
This brings me to the article. I was thrilled when I read that reading magazines and information on the internet was actual reading. My daughter, of course spends lots of time on the computer chatting with friends, looking up things on the internet, and reading magazines. My son loves informational books with lots of pictures. I never thought that these things could be considered reading. I guess I thought that they should be using books as their entertainment rather than T.V., computers, or video games.
I love the Reading Profile that is defined in this article. Using the students input, not only gives insight on what the students are reading, but it helps us to figure out what reading materials they could be interested in and possibly what material could motivate them to read. According to Partin and Hendricks (2002) teachers should broaden their spectrum of materials that they use in their classrooms and their ideologies of "quality" reading material. This is a huge lesson for me personally; hopefully, I can find some way to incorporate some of my children's interests into wonderful reading materials. I'm already "Google-ing".
Later,
T
Most of the reading students engage in is content text. Magazines, blogs, text messages, email, informational picture books, and newspapers are all examples of real reading. Sometimes I wonder if by requiring a certain number of fiction books we depress reading enjoyment for some students. I love to read fiction! Other people love to swim, play baseball (or another sport), craft, cook, garden, etc. If I were required to get a cetain number of baskets, or score a designated number of runs, I would be the polar opposite of motivated. A positive with the common core state standards is that informational text is valued. Narrative structure does form the basis for social interaction and interpersonal skills development. The question: Is less than 3 minutes a day of informational text in grades k-3 enough to think broadly and deeply about content?
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting to me that you read to your children when they were in your womb, and you also read all the different voices. Those comments piqued my interest the most. I think my own sons recognized my voice when they were born after hearing me read so much while I carried them. I must admit that my husband did all the different voices the best. When we were driving to Florida on a family vacation, my husband started reading Are You My Mother? He read the different animal voices in such a silly way that I had to ask him to stop. I was laughing and crying so hard that I thought I would wreck the car. It is great being able to relate to other families. :-)
ReplyDeleteIt's still one of my favorite things to do. My son still loves it even though he is in middle school (he would die if he knew I was telling this)!
ReplyDeleteI do think that requiring students to read a certain number of books is hindering motivation.
ReplyDeleteThere has to be a better way to motivate. I will take what I can get as far as my kids reading, but
I don't think that 3 min. a day is going to be enough....especially when 2015 rolls around!
www.funbrain.com has "Diary of the Wimpy Kid"
ReplyDelete